head to head · open source
Wekan vs Kan
Wekan has 21,089 GitHub stars, 3,000 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kan has 5,656 stars, 477 forks, 135 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Wekan leads on adoption by 273% (21,089 vs 5,656 stars). Wekan is written in JavaScript under MIT; Kan is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Wekan has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Kan 8%. Wekan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Wekan | Kan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 5.7K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 477 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Wekan if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Kan if
- You want the Kan feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Kan fits your workflow better
About Wekan
Wekan is an open source collaborative kanban board application written in JavaScript and built with Meteor. It is licensed under the MIT license and is positioned as a free and open source alternative to Jira and Monday.com. The project lives in the self hosted business software and project management ecosystem.
read the full Wekan overview →
About Kan
Kan is an open source project management application that provides kanban boards, positioned by its maintainers as the open source alternative to Trello. It is written in TypeScript under the AGPL 3.0 license, and it lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem: the stack is built on Next.js, tRPC, Better Auth, Tailwind CSS, Drizzle ORM, React Email, Zod, and Turborepo. The repository has gathered 5,634 stars and 472 forks, with 135 open issues, and its homepage is hosted at kan.bn. It is actively maintained, with the most recent push recorded on 14 September 2026.
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More Project & Work Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Project & Work Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Wekan or Kan more popular?
Wekan has 21,089 GitHub stars and Kan has 5,656. Wekan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Wekan and Kan free?
Both are open source. Wekan is licensed under MIT and Kan under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Wekan and Kan?
Wekan is written in JavaScript and Kan in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Wekan or Kan?
Choose Wekan if you want the larger community (21,089 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Kan if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.